[drewcrawford]

> So: do you want to grow the ecosystem around your software or not?

In short: of course not. Or at least "not at any cost".

Open source projects do loads of things that reduce the potential ecosystem. People choose to work on projects that aren't web browsers, for example. Or they choose languages that aren't the #1 most popular. They target a platform that has less than 50% marketshare. All of those things turn away potential users in exchange for authorial convenience of some form or another.

It is a foreign concept to me to write e.g. a developer tool for a minority environment and then all of a sudden worry about the license being some major barrier.

But more broadly your position is very strange to me in its wider implications. Let us say that some voice actor could donate some spare reel to Disney. Or that some author could donate a manuscript to Penguin. Or that some musician could donate their track to Sony. Do you believe they should do so, under the theory that this in some way "grows the ecosystem" for their work?

[jdmichal]

Artists "give away" things all the time to increase mindshare. If nothing else, they typically give or show copies to influential reviewers.